As you may recall from before, I would have cast Morena Baccarin as Sophia and Alan Tudyk as Demetri if this had actually been filmed. Casting the guy who played Wash on Firefly as a hardcore evil Buffyverse vampire is much easier to visualize if you've also seen him on Dollhouse (partly because his sexy muscles were always hidden by those Hawaiian shirts on Firefly, but were gloriously apparent on Dollhouse). Aaand, moving on.

Sophia looked shrewdly at the large bags of blood on the cart. "Still fattening us up, I see," she said, arching one fine eyebrow. "At this rate, do you really expect the chains to keep holding us, even if you continue to insist on giving us the blood of swine?"

Ever since Lyle Gorch had been locked in the last cell a fortnight earlier, the vampire prisoners' pitifully meager rations had been more than doubled, for reasons unknown to them. The strength that had been fading due to prolonged hunger was rapidly returning, but they still weren't quite at their best. Much longer on the improved rations, though, and that was going to change.

"They'll hold you long enough," said Oliver Smith with an unpleasant smirk.

"Long enough for you and the rest of the little schoolboys up there to finish playing your games?" she asked. His smirk faltered. Being chained in a dungeon had affected neither Sophia's haughtiness nor her breathtaking beauty, and Smith couldn't help feeling intimidated.

Scowling at his own weakness, he threw a bag at her, which she caught deftly in one hand. The links of her chains clinked loudly at the quick movement, and Smith jumped. Sophia closed her eyes and smiled, inhaling a deep, unnecessary breath. "Mmm, there's that fear I was hoping would sweeten my meal."

Cursing, Smith seized the cart and left the cell. He could hear her laughter as he slammed the door.

[o]

The sound of his cell door opening woke him from his sleep, and he growled furiously. She would have come to him in his dream soon if it weren't for that man's infernal timing, he was sure of it. The meal could wait. She was more important. Hell hadn't been able to reach him even in his sleep since the first time she came, but this loud, angry man who always reeked of fear kept taking him away from her. For that, he wanted to hurt him very badly, but he hadn't been able to hurt anything back for a hundred years, and whenever he'd tried, the punishment had been swift, severe, and unavoidable.

After that first dream with her, those parts of him that had been hidden for so long that he seemed to have lost them forever began, slowly, to resurface. Many things continued to elude him, but he did at least remember the meaning of language again. Not that the man who brought his food ever said anything worth listening to or volunteered information about what was going on.

He watched him enter the cell, not troubling to keep the hungry gleam out of his expression. Part of him drew a very deep satisfaction from making the man who routinely punched and kicked him (which was far more irritating than it was painful) smell so strongly of fear. He wasn't used to having other beings fear him. It felt powerful, and he reveled in it.

[o]

Buffy opened her eyes and stared at her ceiling in confusion for a moment. It had been one of those rare nights during which Angel was absent from her dreams, and the dream she had instead was among the weirdest of the ones she could remember. But then she realized that it hadn't been a dream. Her mom and Giles really had acted like teenagers the previous night. And so had Snyder. She shuddered, then looked at her alarm clock. She still had hours before she needed to be up. For the SAT test. With a whimpering groan, she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

[o]

"How are they coming along, Smith?" asked Quentin.

"They're about up to full strength now, and getting more restless by the day."

"Then I think they're ready. Take Weatherby and Collins with you, and bring them to the arena. I'll phone the teachers at Hampshire to have them send the Academy students over immediately."

[o]

The underground arena was so large that it took up the entirety of the two floors above the dungeon at the Council headquarters building. Rows of wooden benches encircled a ten-foot deep, brightly illuminated pit in the center of the room. Many wickedly pointed wooden spikes were set at regular intervals around the top of the pit, and crosses protruded from the wall beneath them. Though these effective barriers were rarely breached by the fighters, four crossbow-wielding Watchers were poised at the pit's edge just in case. Beneath the benches were eight small chambers that now held the vampires. From these, rusty portcullises could be opened, allowing access to the pit.

Wesley filed down the lowest bench after a few of his superiors, unease coursing through him. The only other time he'd been to one of these tournaments was during his own graduating year at the Academy, and he'd become so ill from the gruesome spectacle that he'd vomited all over his Demonology professor. Not a very dignified display in any situation, but as he had been Head Boy at the time, it was especially humiliating.

But that had been years ago, Wesley reassured himself. This time, he was attending because the outcome of this particular tournament would be crucial. He had gone through all of the Council's materials that pertained to Angelus several times, even though their contents made him cringe in horror so frequently that he feared he would soon develop an involuntary twitch, but something was still missing. Those records stopped shortly after the turn of the century, and a lot of things could have happened in the past hundred years. The unknown significance of the Claddagh ring was an itch that Wesley felt he could only scratch by actually speaking to Angelus face-to-face, and the vampire's lucidity and willingness to cooperate were not nearly as critical of factors as whether or not he would survive the tournament.

[o]

Below the benches, while a busload of students from the academy moved noisily to their seats overhead, the undead gladiators were being given their instructions. Weatherby, Collins, and Smith all roved around the space between the heavily reinforced cages, carrying long sticks with crosses on the ends, with which they could prod any vampire who was reluctant to enter the pit when the time came.

"Now," said Weatherby, throwing his cigarette to the ground and stamping on it. "The rules are very simple. There are eight of you now. Soon, there will be one. If you fancy being that one, you must fight. If you don't fight, or if you do anything whatsoever to the effect of trying to attack your audience, you'll be a crossbow bolt pincushion in a matter of seconds, and then a lot dustier a few seconds after that."

"You sods want a show? I'll give you a bloody show," said Ambrose.

"Fool," muttered Sophia.

Collins attempted to poke Ambrose with his holy cattle-prod, but Ambrose dodged it. His and Lyle's faces had matching expressions of growing bloodlust, but they were the only ones who seemed to be excited about the impending death match. Most of the others were merely bored or disdainful—except for Angel, who was bewildered. He was supposed to fight? And winning was a possible outcome of doing so? The concept was foreign; absurd, but the unbreakable survival instincts that had gotten him through the past hundred years shoved his doubts aside.

[o]

"Honored Council members and soon-to-be Watchers," said Quentin in a booming voice once everyone was seated, "welcome to the two hundred and eighty-ninth vampire tournament to be held in this arena. You have all, of course, seen sketches and photographs of vampires in your books, but many of you have yet to see one of these demons in person. These are what we wage our war against, and today you will see for yourselves the brutality of which they are capable. This is what you must remember when the day comes that you must face one yourself."

Many of the Academy students looked deeply apprehensive at this, but Quentin went on, his expression becoming smug. "This year, our special operations squads have managed to bring in some of the most infamous vampires on record, which means that today, you will see battles between masters."

The students now looked appropriately impressed, as did the Council members. Quentin raised his hand to signal the first two portcullises to be opened, then paused. "Oh, and your instructors wish me to advise you that extra credit will be offered to the first students to correctly identify any of these vampires. Loudly, so that we can all hear, if you please." His hand fell, and the gates opened.

Before Weatherby and Smith could use the cross prods, Sophia and Ambrose stepped forward into the pit. Immediately, several of the students on the benches clamored to be heard over each other. A black-haired girl in the front row was loudest.

"That's Sophia," she almost shouted. "She was an Italian courtesan before she was turned in sixteen thirty-four. And the other is Ambrose, turned right here in England in eighteen sixty-six." The Council members nodded approvingly.

Ambrose's features became demonic, and he charged the older vampire without hesitation. It wasn't until he was immediately before her that Sophia reacted, when, faster than blinking, she sidestepped his attack. His momentum sent him crashing into the door of Erebus's cage. Lyle and Demetri laughed mockingly at him, and he snarled. In the second he had wasted to growl at the other two, however, Sophia had moved to the edge of the pit and jumped up. Many of the younger spectators gasped, and the Watchers with crossbows tensed, but before they could take aim, she had ripped one of the wooden spikes from the top of the wall and landed cat-like back on the ground, her long curly hair flying forward over her shoulders.

Rounding on her, but not noticing that she had acquired a weapon, Ambrose lunged towards her again, but his tackle was interrupted by the wooden spike going through his chest. He crumbled to dust, giving everyone above a clear view of Sophia's satisfied smirk. With an upward flick of her hand, the spike twirled through the air, then clattered to the stone floor, and Sophia swept regally back into her cage.

The second pair of cages opened.

Holy cattle-prods! *giggle* But seriously, though, poles ending in crosses would be very effective for that purpose. And I think vampire Inara--*cough* I mean, Sophia--has become my favorite of all of the vamps I've made up. Including my Seven Deadly Sins personified vamps from "Season 8", of which four are present in this tournament. And, yes, making Sophia a courtesan when she was human was VERY deliberate. Hehe. I'm having way too much fun with this semi-Buffy/Firefly crossover business.